The Kestrel Armor is an excellent choice for both Vanguards and Sentinels. Sentinels benefit from the high shield boost and Vanguards benefit from the shield, weapon damage and melee damage boosts.

A Soldier specializing in close range combat would also find the Kestrel Armor useful for many of the same reasons as a Vanguard, especially since it is available right from the start.

The Kestrel Armor's "mix and match" capability gives it more flexibility than other DLC armor, since the separate pieces can be used according to the player's taste.

The Kestrel armor all together provides more generalized bonuses, in addition to the high shield boost. If no other option strongly recommends itself, it's often wiser to use as much of the armor as you can, given how many of its bonuses are incrementally distributed among its several pieces.

The Kestrel armor system's spinal-mount processor synchronizes artificial torso muscle fibers with limb movements, allowing power to be generated by the legs, channeled through the core, and projected out through the arms. Stabilization of the firing platform assists in autotargeting, and waist-mounted capacitors add to the power of kinetic barriers.

Artificial muscle fibers controlled by the Kestrel armor system's central processor allow for both gross motor movements and precision support of the hands. This steadies aim in a manner compatible with most firearm autotargeting systems. Additional capacitors for shield generation are installed on the ulnar side of the forearm.

Kestrel Armor
Shepard,
Our armor technicians have had a lively debate about the Kestrel armor system. The suit is supposed to be effective on its own merits, but the technicians felt its shield algorithms were best exploited piecemeal in custom arrangements by combining it with other armors. I've shipped the Kestrel suit to the Normandy. It has modular programming so that you can mix and match the parts you wish.

In Mass Effect 3, a similar armor in appearance to the Kestrel Armor is available in the form of Rosenkov Materials pieces, also possessing different attributes to the Kestrel Armor pieces of Mass Effect 2. The helmet, however, is referred to as the "Kestrel" helmet.

In real life, Kestrel body armour is a single piece body armor unit that was issued to troops in the British Armed Forces to protect against the effects of IED detonations but was withdrawn in 2006, as the rigidity of the design left the wearer almost unable to operate their weapon system.